Clinical trial · Interventional
Neurosurgical Transitional Care Programme
Transitional Care Services: A Quality and Safety Process Improvement Programme in Neurosurgery
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Why stopped (as posted): Early data showed an improvement in length of stay and patient satisfaction, but the nursing time that had been provided for free was subsequently withdrawn, and it was necessary to stop the trial before sufficient data had been collected.
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
Readmissions increasingly serve as a metric of hospital performance, inviting quality improvement initiatives in both medicine and surgery. Recently, a readmission reduction program in the United States was associated with significantly shorter length of stay, earlier discharge, and reduced 30-day readmission after elective neurosurgery. These results underscore the importance of patient education and surveillance after hospital discharge, and it would be beneficial to test whether the same approach yields beneficial results in a different health system, the NHS. In this study, the investigators will replicate the Transitional Care Program (TCP) with the goal of decreasing length of stay, improving discharge efficiency, and reducing readmissions in neurosurgical patients by optimizing patient education and post-discharge surveillance.
Conditions
Conditions (22)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aneurysm | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Cancer | Malignant Brain Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
| Brain Cyst | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Diseases | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Lesion | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Metastases | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Pathology | — | UNRESOLVED | — |
| Brain Tumor | Brain Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
| Brain Tumor, Recurrent | Brain Neoplasm | CURATED_BROADER |
Interventions
Interventions (1)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transitional Care Programme | Other | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- type
- EXPERIMENTAL
- label
- Transitional Care Programme
- description
- The primary intervention of the Transitional Care Programme (TCP) will be additional patient education, framing of expectations for the hospital course and length of stay, coordinated team preparation for discharge, a dedicated discharge appointment, and a follow up phone call.
- interventionNames
- Other: Transitional Care Programme
- type
- NO_INTERVENTION
- label
- Standard of Care
- description
- Patients are admitted without a pre-determined discharge date. They do not receive a dedicated discharge appointment, and will not receive a follow up phone call 48 hours after discharge.
Primary outcomes (1)
- measure
- Length of Hospital Stay
- timeFrame
- From time of hospital admission until the time of first hospital discharge or time of death from any cause, whichever came first. Assessed up to 4 months post-admission.
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * Patients are eligible for the TCP if scheduled for elective neurological surgery (including spinal surgery performed by an orthopedic surgeon) and were expected to have a discharge disposition to home. Exclusion Criteria: * Patients with an anticipated discharge to a facility other than home * Patients with an anticipated discharge to home who are then discharged to a facility other than home will be excluded from the statistical analysis
References
Publications (3)
- BACKGROUNDRobertson FC, Logsdon JL, Dasenbrock HH, Yan SC, Raftery SM, Smith TR, Gormley WB. Transitional care services: a quality and safety process improvement program in neurosurgery. J Neurosurg. 2018 May;128(5):1570-1577. doi: 10.3171/2017.2.JNS161770. Epub 2017 Jul 14. PMID 28707992
- BACKGROUNDJones CE, Hollis RH, Wahl TS, Oriel BS, Itani KM, Morris MS, Hawn MT. Transitional care interventions and hospital readmissions in surgical populations: a systematic review. Am J Surg. 2016 Aug;212(2):327-35. doi: 10.1016/j.amjsurg.2016.04.004. Epub 2016 Jun 1. PMID 27353404
- BACKGROUNDVerhaegh KJ, MacNeil-Vroomen JL, Eslami S, Geerlings SE, de Rooij SE, Buurman BM. Transitional care interventions prevent hospital readmissions for adults with chronic illnesses. Health Aff (Millwood). 2014 Sep;33(9):1531-9. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0160. PMID 25201657